8 yr old needs confidence booster. Ideas please

A snowHead

Hi, need advice please. We have had 2 family skiing holidays, but our 8 year old was scared at ski schoool last year (was taken higher than we adult beginners were), and has been put off going again.
We would like to ski in March next year, and I'm looking for recommendations for resorts with fantastic kids tuition (sound of trumpets etc!)
Or, as a different option, can anyone give opinions/ ideas on prices etc on hiring a ski instructor for our family. Thanks for any help

A snowHead

If its within budget most US & Canadian resorts have great kids programmes, otherwise its a good bet to look for somewhere with a English speaking independent ski school. Family private might work too. People will be along with specific recommendations soon.

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A couple of pints before hitting the slopes will provide the lad with some dutch courage.

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Take his / her best friend along.

They will bolster each other.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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After all it is free · Last edited by After all it is free on Fri 3-10-08 10:57; edited 1 time in total

hollyvan, welcome to Snow Heads snowHead

I can completely empathise - my own two sons had a great time in their first lessons in a small and very French resort, where the only real option was private lessons (group lessons would have been just French kids and them). The instructor was a lady in her 40s, who was French but had worked in the US so had good English. They loved their lessons and came on in leaps and bounds. It was ESF....... However, the next year was a different story - again ESF lessons in a bigger resort in the PdS, but despite email assurances beforehand, and assurances in the office on the first day, that they would be in an English speaking class, with decent English-speaking instruction, they were the only non-French in a class of 12. On top of this they were taken to 'the top' in very poor visibility and my then 8 year old, fell off the long drag lift on the way up. When he reached the top, the class hadn't waited for him, despite my older son shouting that his brother wasn't with them, so you can imagine the fears and tears.

Consequently, this year in La Tania, neither of them wanted ski school so we decided to let them ski with us on confidence boosting runs, and see how they went. The fallback was a couple of private lessons with Magic in Motion, the British ski school in La Tania. However, they enjoyed themselves so much and came on so well, that they didn't have lessons after all. Their confidence has now returned and they are happy to go back into ski school next season. As a recommendation for a resort, La Tania was great for our mixed level group. The boys could ski from the very top as they called it, on blues and greens, but it can also be done on reds and blacks. The lift system is mostly chairs and gondolas, with a free drag in the resort centre which serves the ski school for the first days, but anyone can use it for practice. The resort is also very family-friendly with a pedestrianised centre and tobagganing runs. To summarise...... Very Happy

- private lessons worked well for us intially, followed by removing the pressure of having to go into ski school, after such an unpleasant experience, which allowed them to rebuild their confidence. Good luck Very Happy

hollyvan, Agree with DB. Serfaus would be a fantastic choice. Considered it myself this year but opted for tried and trusted Arlberg region, as I'm missing out on boys trip to St Anton this year. http://en.serfaus-fiss-ladis.at/ We checked out various hotels and the Lowe annd Baer looked really family friendly (part of the Kinderhotel standard). Huge learners area with loads of non ski activities too. When checking out prices etc you will find that you will be priced on full day supervision and tuuition with lift passes etcc, so the initial price may seem high. However you can ask for this not to be included.

Would also agree with DB that a private instructor for a couple of hours for a couple of days will probably benefit more than a whole week of ski school. The downside with Serfaus is that only Inghams go there, so not too many (naturally) English speaking kids, hence the reason that private instruction may be better.

I have found that ski school is not really ideal for the kids, but probably for the adults (ie dump the kids for a few hours). We tend to get the kids instruction at home on dry slopes for say 10-12 weeks before we go, and then we ski with them the majority of the time. We also get them private instruction for an hour or two for the first couple of days just to get the ski legs on snow, instead of dendex.

Good luck with your quest

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Me too.. when I was trying to get my two interested...1st year eldest stood in boots on day one and just cried......didn't ski for the rest of the holiday...2nd year we had private lessons with my brothers children so 4 children who were great mates................it was OK but I wouldn't do it again....

It was possibly the teacher they had, she was very nice but if one of them fell and had a whinge then she would take them all for hot chocolate and mars bars!!

Kids are kids and worked out they could take it in turns and so they kept getting hot chocoloate and mars bars and their skiing was painful!!

3rd year - Morzine British Ski school!! - best move we made.................small classes, 2 teachers per group, english must be their 1st langueage....so if a child falls or says something flip (by now they were teens) the teacher didn't have to think about what they said or how to reply....they just replied...........if child fell having an english voice talking them through getting back up and not whinging they did.... I've got a lot of french ski instructor friends and yes they can teach really well....but the language does present a learning barrier.........

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I'd second (or third or whatever) the N.America suggestion; they seem to have a different approach to most (not all, I'm sure) European schools. My daughter had a bit of a wobble at the beginning of her second 'proper' ski hol. The boss of the ski school (Sunshine) had nothing better to do so she took her out for the morning, on her own, no extra charge, and my daughter has never looked back. That was a spot of luck, but they seem in general to much more responsive to individual kid's needs than the more industrial European schools.

Wherever you go, I'd suggest a private lesson at the start of the hol for a morning or even all day if the budget will run to it, with a chum if one can be organised. That may well be enough to get the confidence going. Group ski school can be great fun for kids once they have the necessary confidence (which some have from day one), and seeing other people find things difficult can itself be a confidence booster as well as a good laugh.

On the being 'scared once a day' front, while it may not be a smart move to say that to a nervous kid, I can't imagine learning to see without being scared once or more a day, I certainly was and still am. It's something that learners have to deal with; the trick is to be scared, do whatever it is and realise that there was no need to be scared. A good instructor who inspires confidence is key for this to be achieved. On my second ski hol, the first for 15 years or so, our instructor stopped us by a (small) ski jump ramp (on the 'Truit' run from Motteret to Meribel IIRC) and said 'Take oeuf ze skiss and climb up; we are making ze jump.' Such was our confidence in him that we started to do so.

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hollyvan, Never directly had this problem, although I think that if you can get an English ski school or a ski school in a predominantly english resort then your kids will find it easier to make friends and therefore relax and join in with the classes. We have used several different schools, both independent and ESF but in all cases there has been a mix of French/English kids in the groups and always someone that my kids could tag along with/talk to. Of particular recommendation are the English schools such as New Generation (which we used in meribel and they were excellent), etc.

Also might be worth expanding on why they felt scared? Was it the slopes/terrain, the lifts or the instructor? Then you can focus your resort on somewhere which mitigates these.

We had a 9 year old who, one year was was skiing red runs much of the week and even skied her first black and then the following year lost her confidence possibly (we think) because she had a couple of friends along who seemed fearless. She got put off ski school because she skied so slowly that the only class she would keep up with, was full of 5 year olds. As a result she dipped out of ski school and pootled around blues all week.
The following year she would scream and freeze if we even turned off a green run onto a blue.
Anyway as much out of desperation as anything, we got her a private lesson with Kenny Dixon at Supreme ski school in Courchevel. Now, not only does he speak English but as one of the directors of the school and ex-head of BASI, he had a great pedigree with which to talk him up (initialy she wasn't even happy to be doing a private rolling eyes

).
By the end of the lesson, she was back on Red runs, admittedly extremely cautiously but just the fact that she was prepared to keep her skis on her feet when the piste markers weren't green was a joy Laughing

It's not a cheap resort but Courchevel in the 3 Valleys has some phenomenal ski instrction available in the shape of Supreme and New Generation ski schools. All the instructors in these 2 schools speak fantastic English and as a resort, Courchevel1850 is incredibly flattering to the novice skier with a huge variety of nursery-ish slopes surrounding the town.

One year on, we were in La Plagne and 'popped' over to Tignes for the day to hook up with her best friend from school. We were astonished when the two of them just got up from lunch, got their skis on and started going up and down the adjacent blue slope of their own volition!
We've still not got her back into ski school but then, at one point we thought we weren't even going to get her back on skis Confused

So I'd have to say, the most important thing we've learned is 'patience'. You have so many years ahead of you to ski: just so long as you make sure [s]he continues to enjoy skiing, the confidence will come back.

You know it makes sense.

Last year, our ski guide was telling us about his 8yr old who has been skiing since he was tiny. At the start of the season, he found his skiing was really bad & off balance (ok, this is all relative rolling eyes

) but Fred reckoned it was because he had had a growth spurt & so was out of balance with his body. After a few weeks he was skiing like a demon again, but his confidence had taken a bit of a battering. Just a thought, but maybe this is something parents of growing children should consider when returning to the slopes after several months away.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I htink there's also a point (age) where children start to get fear and realise that they can hurt themselves.................... skiing is scary..... I still sometimes get that feeling of......aaaaaawwwwww during a run!!

A snowHead

Les Gets is very family friendly and there are two good ski school options where instructors have English as their first language. Class sizes tend to be small too, although you will pay more as a result.

British Alpine Ski School - www.britishskischool.com
Les Gets Snowsports - www.skischool.co.uk

A snowHead

hollyvan, US or Canada. Better staff-pupil ratios, Tuition in enthusiastic English.

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Thanks for all your replies guys. Good to know that some of you have been through this, and excellent advice as well!

Help!!

8 yr old needs confidence booster. Ideas please

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